Samsung G9 Neo vs. the normal G9 (240Hz version) - worth the extra $ or not?

[Emiliano85]

I'm planning to buy a secondary ultrawide monitor purely for gaming, and narrowed the options down to the two Samsung Odyssey G9 screens (default 240Hz one and the Neo version).

I can't decide between them though. The non-Neo costs what equals 1079$ in my country (Denmark) while the Neo version sets me back 1550$.

Obviously the Neo is a better screen generally speaking, but is it worth the extra ≈+50% pricetag of the "vanilla" version? I might even be able to snatch a second hand non-Neo piece from a colleague of mine, only very slightly used (dated to july 2022), for 675$.

I'm mainly asking you guys who had both, upgraded from one to the other, thus talking from own comparison/experience.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Both have a ton of QC issues so I would say neither is worth buying but if your buddy has an older non neo that he can confirm doesn't come with issues that may be worth grabbing.

 

[Emiliano85]

Both have a ton of QC issues so I would say neither is worth buying but if your buddy has an older non neo that he can confirm doesn't come with issues that may be worth grabbing.

To my understanding many of the initial issues have been resolved via firmware updates. Or?

 

[oxrufiioxo]

To my understanding many of the initial issues have been resolved via firmware updates. Or?

Some of them seem like they were hardware issues so Samsung would have had to do new revisions which is possible.... HDR was pretty much broken on the NEO at launch but honestly haven't looked to much into it.


If you could get the neo with a really good return policy I would say FALD with true HDR is worth the price difference. I game primarily on a C1 and the difference from a standard monitor is massive for content consumption/gaming.

 

[junglist724]

I got one at launch then returned it. I bought it again several months later for $1000 off after some firmware updates.

The HDR experience is much better now compared to launch. The 2000 nits claim is a complete lie. On the original firmware you could hit over 2000 nits when you had the entire screen dark and brought a bright object on screen, but it would dim down to 600 nits within seconds and then it couldn't do it again until the entire screen was dark for a while. Content that was supposed to be 1000 nits would get brightened to 2000+ so you couldn't tell the difference between something intended to be 1000 nits and something intended to be 10,000 nits, it would all be 2000 nits. On the old firmware I think I measured a typical peak brightness of 600 nits in a bright scene in a game. There was also an issue with HDR Dynamic mode oversaturating colors to the point where a gradient looked like one solid color.

On the latest firmware it's basically incapable of hitting 2000 nits. I measure a sustained brightness of just over 1000 nits on a 10% window and 600 nits full screen, so it's just about meeting DisplayHDR1000 specs. The black levels are pretty good but with local dimming set to high it can have extreme blooming with small bright objects in very dark scenes. Dropping local dimming to low helps a lot with that but drops peak brightness to about 900 nits. The local dimming algorithm just isn't as refined as Samsung's TVs.

Response times are really fast with none of the typical VA black smearing, but if you use VRR and can't get framerates close to the max refresh rate you get the opposite problem with overshoot in dark scenes. You really need a 4090 to get the most out of this monitor in more demanding games.

Both of the panels I've gotten have had a laundry list of issues:

• Scanlines/Pixel inversion on saturated colors
• Poor uniformity that's only noticeable when large chunks of the screen are the same bright color
• Not always detected at boot when it's asleep. I often have to manually power on the monitor and use the OSD to keep it awake or my PC will give the no VGA post code.
• Sometimes the entire panel will randomly display rainbow colors or just go entirely black until I unplug the power cable. Weirdly the FALD backlight keeps working, I can see the backlight light up when I move my mouse or open the start menu.
  
  
  

I've seen the monitor go as low as $1283 with a student discount(just requires a school email). At that price it might be worth dealing with the issues. The HDR experience is pretty good and the response time/refresh rate is amazing if you have a PC powerful enough to take advantage of it.

There will be more HDR monitors releasing soon though. The Viewsonic Elite XG341C-2K looks like a decent option if it doesn't have VA black smearing. It launches in December at a less insane $1500 price compared to other top end HDR LCDs. There's also some more affordable high refresh rate 4K monitors from Coolermaster and Viewsonic coming with 576 dimming zone IPS panels but I think IPS really needs way more dimming zones to counter IPS glow and low contrast.

 

[GerKNG]

forget about samsung monitors.
they are "high end tech" in a wish dot com packaging with atrocious quality. ( i owned a bunch of them like the fist G7)